Entrepreneurship Is for the Rich. It Shouldn’t Be.
I didn’t grow up with much extra money.
My parents, both working-class refugees to Canada, struggled to make ends meet and to give us the best possible opportunities. Canada itself is an excellent place to be an immigrant, and we never wanted for much, really.
My mom was always a striver. Though she had decent-paying jobs with great stability (and some success) she always yearned to start her own thing. And she did, three times over, with a home business selling kitchenwares, and then market stalls and eventually stores selling all kinds of home goods.
This rubbed off on me — hardcore. I have spent the majority of my career (the last 21 years to be precise) starting companies. I get an extraordinary thrill from ideating and then materializing that idea into an actual company. This first phase is — far and away — my favorite, and a source of great excitement. It’s why I spend so much time mentoring startups even now, and producing programs like the SYOB (Start Your Own Business) project with Entrepreneur magazine and Gro. Being able to feed others’ optimism is powerful stuff.
One of the first startup lessons you learn however is to ensure that you have enough capital. Cash is companies’ oxygen, after all. I learned this the hard way with my first family startup when I was 16, where…
